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Attempted IP Theft from Apple Thwarted

Apple's new Product Security Division caught an employee trying to steal their self driving technology and had him arrested at San Jose airport after he went through a security check point on his way to China. China is obviously still at the very least tolerating the theft of US IP as their current actions show. He wouldn't have quit Apple unless he had a willing buyer of the stolen technology. This is just a piece of the trade way China has launched by at the very least turning a very blind eye to IP theft and at worst engaging in it directly. Every company should do what Apple has done and set up a product security division if they want to stay in and prosper from their business. It is time for China to step up to the plate and become a true free trade partner, the choice is theirs, not ours.

When I worked at Intel they had a security program where an anonymous employee would walk into your building or cubicle un-announced and try to steal as much IP as possible, then walk out of the building to report how lax your security measures were. Only the paranoid survive.

In the EDA world this Apple theft incident reminds me of when disgruntled Cadence employees stole source code for Place and Route software and then joined competitor Avant!, where they then re-used the stolen code. When a common customer did a benchmark between Cadence and Avant! software they were shocked to find identical error messages when reading the same design, revealing the theft of source code. Avant! dragged out the legal proceedings for years, then finally a handful of Avant! employees were convicted but Avant! president Gerry Hsu fled the US for China in order to avoid being prosecuted.

In the EDA world this Apple theft incident reminds me of when disgruntled Cadence employees stole source code for Place and Route software and then joined competitor Avant!, where they then re-used the stolen code. When a common customer did a benchmark between Cadence and Avant! software they were shocked to find identical error messages when reading the same design, revealing the theft of source code. Avant! dragged out the legal proceedings for years, then finally a handful of Avant! employees were convicted but Avant! president Gerry Hsu fled the US for China in order to avoid being prosecuted.

It didn't quite happen that way (I worked for Avant!). Gerry was arrested during the FBI raid and prosecuted. Mitch Igusa actually stole the code, Mitch was a "consultant" to Avant!. I think Stephen Wuu and Mitch are the only ones who did time for it. Mostly it was a bunch of fines. When Synopsys acquired Avant! all of them got golden parachutes so justice was not really served, my opinion. From what I remember Joe Costello lost his Cadence CEO job over this when he threatened customers who bought Avant! software.

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